At Luscious Verde, we’re always adding fresh and fashionable papers to our line. And as much as we hate it, sometimes we have to discontinue a paper because the mills have stopped producing it. Because of these changes, it is vital that your color ring is kept current.

With a current paper color ring, you’ll be able to:

Choose paper and ink color combos

Feel the paper weights

Feel the paper textures

We know what it’s like to fall in love with a certain color combo, only to be told later that you’ve selected a discontinued color. So it’s best to avoid confusion and frustration by tossing out any discontinued papers and by adding the newest ones as they arrive.

After spending some time updating the color rings here at LVC, I have a few suggestions for getting your ring in shape for use. Print a copy of the “paper color list” and grab a pen. Go through your ring and circle any papers that are on the list but not on your ring. If you see a paper on your ring, but not on the list, then it’s discontinued. Remove that paper from your ring (recycle it, please) and keep going through the list. Fax me the list of your missing colors and I’ll mail them to you the same day.

P.S. Thanks to Out Of The Box in Rye Brook, NY for this blog entry idea.P.P.S. Thanks to Sharon for helping me update our rings (still can't believe you met Jim Morrison, so jealous).P.P.P.S Clayton, the next time you're in town we'll hit up the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I have a membership!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

As a reminder to folks far and wide, with our new die-cut abilities, we can custom-cut any letter in almost any typestyle. We are still working on a way to custom-cut your favorite food product. Seriously, any letter, almost any typestyle.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Here's a nifty one -- a customer took a design from our new correspondence catalog moving update and used it as an invitation to a cocktail party. Sounds deliciously fun. (We made a few extra invites for ourselves. Road trip to Purchase!)

Ah, the beloved theme day, scourge of the grouchy employee. Thank goodness we have none of those here, or days like last Friday’s “Twin Day” would not be an ultra success.

Brought upon by two employees who basically share a similar wardrobe, the idea for the day was originally proposed in jest, with its masterminds (Kelly and myself) unprepared for the planning and sheer creativity of all the employees (seen to your left).

The mind reels with the possibilities of ridiculous theme days that people actually get excited about. All-black Wednesday? Dress like plant manager Joe on May first? Hippie day? Grunge day? (OK, we did that one.) Submit your best ideas – we may actually do it.

Sorry about the lack of Hot Card yesterday. There were these, uh, aliens, right? And they, like, took over our office. We fought them with plywood and a white-hot desire to save earth from aliens. OK, you got us -- we just had a dentist appointment.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Those of us born and raised in Cleveland (or who simply call it home after years of wandering) were pleasantly surprised by last Thursday's episode of "30 Rock" on NBC. The whole episode revolved around the lead character (played by the lovely Tina Fey) considering a move to Cleveland and buying a house either in "Lakewood or the Heights," where, combined, about 85 percent of Luscious Verde calls home. Check out a clip here.

Friday, April 20, 2007

To keep your taste for cards satiated over the weekend, here are two selections from our line of baby announcements. And remember, just mention the words "Luscious Verde" at your local Lucky's Pizza for 10 percent off an order of small garlic breadsticks and/or mild wings. Have a great weekend.

Talking trash is something that comes naturally to us at Luscious Verde, but one day a year we put aside our differences and talk a sort of trash that doesn’t include making fun of Rob’s faux-hawk, or Ted’s proclivity to cross-dress. And that day, this Sunday, is Earth Day. It’s sort of a holiday, but it really isn’t one. We certainly don’t have any Earth Day cards in our catalogs, and we probably never will. But that doesn’t mean we don’t recognize it.

Like any business, Luscious Verde Cards produces a fair amount of waste. We’re just as trashy as the rest, with the exception that we Reduce, Reuse, and then Recycle! It’s very simple. We have recycling bins everywhere –there are many in each department to collect office paper and cardstock scraps. Even before we recycle our office paper, we make sure to print on both sides to save trees (and money).

Within an eight-month period, we collected almost four tons of paper for recycling and reused almost 400 pounds of cardstock scraps. When we’re not making Japanese-style bound books from reused scrap paper, we’re donating these materials to local schools to help train the L.V.C. employees of the future!

But really, waste reduction is a serious issue. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that Americans generate almost five pounds of trash per person per day. Multiply that by almost 300 million people in the U.S., and that’s a lot of trash ending up in landfills. Even worse, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources states that approximately 41 percent of our landfills are occupied by just paper alone! You won’t trace any of that paper back to us, since we’ve diverted almost five tons of waste from entering local landfills through our recycling and reuse initiatives. That’s the equivalent of 10 less trash bin pulls per year and a savings of almost $200 on trash costs.

Also, Luscious Verde is a proud member of the EPA Waste Wise Program. With the EPA’s expertise, they help us with our waste reduction efforts.

So, in a nutshell, this is what we are actively doing for the environment. You can rest assured that when you purchase our cards, we are doing all that we can to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. But more importantly, we encourage you to do the same.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

OK, we’re going to try something new on this blog. We know you love reading about our wacky, sitcom-esque crew, but you’re also curious about, you know, what our cards look like.

Every day from now until the end of eternity (or every other day if we get lazy), we will feature our Hot Card of the Day, or HCOTD. We’re obviously not as good with coming up with cool acronyms as we are making and designing great, one-of-a-kind cards.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Giving the people what they want: that’s the Luscious Verde way. And what we’ve heard from retailers is that our old order form was, for the lack of a better term, not ideal. So we revamped it, moved a few things around, and generally smoothed it out so that customers have an even better experience when ordering our products. We’ve grouped together similar pieces of information, given more space for special instructions, and added a new spot to indicate our bitchin’ new offerings, like custom ply papers and custom cuts. You should have received a new packet of order forms with our spring newsletter, but they’re also available in the “For Retailers” section of our main Web site.

Also, during some extra time, we’ve been making some extremely cute new notebooks using Japanese binding. We’ll be sending them out with all orders, whether they’re sent to retailers or drop-shipped. It’s all part of our commitment to not waste the resources that we have – another reminder that recycling doesn’t just give you the warm fuzzies, it’s also good for business.

Friday, April 6, 2007

Client relations manager Toni Tringolo wants to inform you and possibly teach you a new vocabulary word. But the latest edition of the Luscious Verde Cards newsletter is more than mere folderol. Well, mostly. Toni (shown below, not in Paris) toiled for more than 60 hours to plan, help write, delegate and execute the contents of the entire newsletter.

We know, you could read books the size of Dickens novels about our crazy, loveable company, but for the sake of saving trees and not putting too much of a strain on postal employees (and not going postal ourselves), we narrowed down the information we wanted to share with you to a scant few paragraphs, lots of lovely pictures, and a hot new layout by our designer Jason.

Included in the newsletter are spotlights on our wedding update, our new moving cards, our blog (aw, shucks), custom die-cuts to die for (although we'd rather you didn't do that), our brand new and hopefully even more helpful order forms, profiles about our fascinating and eclectic production art team (they're the ones who make the magic happen) and a list of all the new things going on, offered, or discontinued. Basically, we want to keep you in the loop. When the newsletters hit your mailbox, you'll find them accompanied by stacks of new order forms, custom-ply paper samples, and new colors and inks to add to your color rings. For our stores with booming baby sales, we've also included a custom notepad to help customers record important details for their birth announcements (like, for instance, what they're going to be calling the kid).

"I hope they get a laugh, but also, I honestly hope they realize the kind of resources we have," says Toni about what she hopes to convey through the newsletter. "We have so many options." Options, indeed. Toni also made sure each newsletter was mailed with a "Choose Your Proof" chart that displays black and white proofs, color proofs, and color mock-ups so your clients can make a choice with confidence. After spending the day sorting, stacking, and stuffing the envelopes to be shipped, Toni's already gearing up to tackle the next "LVC Times." Hint: we're talking summertime, custom-cut envelopes, and our new Bar & Bat Mitzvah line. Maybe we'll even throw in more vocabulary. It'll be a bundle of jocularity (a.k.a. fun). Or, we could just stick to the cards. (Also fun.)